Richard Mallory
Dear Ones in Christ Jesus,
Today’s gospel occurs during the last days of Jesus’ life. Some were ogling the most magnificent building in Jerusalem, the temple. Like tourists, they were taking in the magnificence, the beauty, and the engineering marvel that it was. Jesus punctures their reverie. It will all be thrown down. When all four gospels were written, the terrible destruction of Jerusalem by Roman legions had occurred. The traumatic memory was firmly implanted for everyone who had survived mass destruction and slaughter.
Jesus’ prediction resulted from discernment that you or I might also have made. There had already been at least four uprisings that were brutally put down. Ongoing hints and schemes for further revolts were “in the air.” Jesus could see where this trend would lead. Rome would no longer concentrate on specific insults to its majesty. Rome would wreck genocide on the entire kit and kaboodle. Contemporaneous historian Josephus says that more than one million people were killed in the onslaught.
At the same time in his life, Jesus had “cleansed the temple,” turning over tables, declaring once and for all that the sacrificial system in its entirety was bogus. The destruction of the temple that he predicted would be the material manifestation of spiritual reality. The longing of the prophets would be realized (“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6) Sacrificial violence of any sort could no longer function without questioning. The license to sacrifice anything was prohibited by Jesus.
People still get sacrificed in their being labeled as “other.” People get sacrificed according to their skin color, sexual orientation, class designation, geographical place of origin, abled or disabled, and so forth and so on. Humanity has not read the memo from Jesus, let alone internalized it.
Every culture, organization, community, church, group or family that relies on creation of unity through finding victims by labeling them as “other” to blame, put down, shame or marginalize will instinctively recognize the Gospel as dangerous. Holding onto “better than” posturing is a refusal to accept the breadth and depth of Gospel living as is the obverse of holding onto “less than” in the defining of oneself.
Jesus saw the inevitable trajectory as he surveyed those tourists that day. Humanity would continue to use violence against violence that would result in super violent destruction of the beloved temple, the city and its population. The only way out of futility is the way of non violence. For individuals, couples, families, communities, countries, the stand is taken, the buck stops here. Violence will not be met with more violence. The disciple absorbs the violence and refuses to pass it on.
—Richard
